


Bullet to the Brain

by orphan_account



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, This story is not an easy read, Violence, eye gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 16:04:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7940683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form. --Charles Darwin</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bullet to the Brain

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking about season 5 and how the writers will probably try to hurt Helena. But then I remembered that people can literally survive anything and was like, bull shit. Helena will be fine.
> 
> That being said, be forewarned, this story isn't exactly easy to read

She lost her eyes.

This is what the doctors told Sarah. The bullet severed the optic nerves as it passed from one temple to the other, trailing through the tissue like the tail of a comet, leaving behind fragments of bone and torn tissue like the stars.  

Helena’s eyes will soon be removed—in a week or two, perhaps, once she’d some time to recover. But for now her eyes would look like violet stones embedded beneath the lids, crying rivulets of blood. Sarah watched as the doctors covered her eyes with white gauze and then again with a thicker cover, unsure whether it was for Helena’s comfort or for hers.

“The light will irritate her for some time,” The doctor explained. “But your sister’s very lucky. There was hardly any brain damage.”

Lucky—Sarah shook her head. Lucky that Helena will never be able to see her children again, or fully hear their laughter, or the soft way they croon at night, singing to each other from their separate cradles.

They loaded Sarah’s shoulders with bricks of information—Keep her eyes covered. Change her dressing often to avoid infection. Use this to clean her face. Don’t use this. Introduce her to people again slowly, no more than two people at a time. Her left eardrum burst upon impact, there’s no telling if it will ever recover.

Helena was blind and partially deaf, and all because she was lucky enough to be Sarah’s sister. She lay on the hospital bed with a limp jaw, embedded deeply in a medicated stupor to not feel how her eyes had become clumps of wet paper behind her lids.

Sarah couldn’t look at her sister properly. She stared at the doctor’s sky blue gloves, which protected her sister from the graze of flesh or nail. Helena looked so small on the hospital bed. Her hair had been shaven short so that she looked nearly unrecognizable from before, with soft brown hair. A baby's skull. Her chest rose and fell soundlessly, punctuated by the monotone beeping from the monitors around her. The excess of her dreams collected in the stitches across her temples and interwove with the wire sutures.

A nurse touched Sarah’s shoulder, startling her to attention. Then, shaking her hands in front of her, she began demonstrating how to make non-threatening sounds to show Helena that she was near.  She rubbed her hands together so that a sibilant sound filled the room.

“She’s sedated, so you have time to practice. But it will be important for Helena to practicd utilizing her remaining senses."

“What’s left for her to use?” Sarah asked, wiping away tears. The nurse raised a hand to her mouth and breathed in and out and in, then lowered her hand. Sarah did the same and felt as warm air collected against her palm.

“Her sense of smell and touch will become more sensitive,” said the nurse, watching as Sarah crossed her arms over her chest. “This is just another learning curve. Like anything else.”

Then she left. Sarah opened her mouth, wanting to ask for her to stay, but couldn’t speak past the lump in her throat— _don’t leave me alone with her, please_.

She listened to the monitors tracking Helena’s heart. Then she closed the curtains to her stall, insulating her off from the rest of the world.

After some time, she pulled up a chair beside Helena. The legs of the chair scratched against the floor with a reedy whine, making Helena twitch restlessly in her sleep.

“Sorry,” Sarah murmured. She noticed that Helena’s hearing ear was facing her, but there was no telling how much use it was to her at the moment. She folded her hands on the bed and watched Helena’s sleeping face. The swelling had gone down, but not by much. The gauze over her eyes had a starburst stain of blood spreading across the space where her eyes should be. She would need to learn to change these dressings soon.

Step 1: Un-wrap the gauze. Step 2: Try not to look into her eyes. Step 3: Don’t run.

“Can you hear me?” She asked.

Hesitantly, she touched Helena’s arm. Her palm felt callous against the soft, blonde hairs as it brushed down to Helena’s wrist, and then she turned her hand over so that the palm was upturned. Helena’s palm was fleshy and pink and her fingers were half-curled, like a flower mid-bloom. The lines in her palm were deep and wrinkled.

She remembered the way these hands had once flitted against hers, mirrors of each other, communicating something that neither sister could put into words.

“You’ve got a long life ahead of you,” Sarah murmured, tracing a finger along the line that curved around Helena’s thumb.

Helena jolted awake, belatedly recognizing the touch. A pained whine yawned from her mouth and filled the room. Sarah stood up, wringing her hands together, and clicked the nurse’s button. Once, twice, three times. The buzzer wailed in the room, frightening Helena even more. Fitfully, Helena began pulling at the gauze around her eyes.

“No! Don’t do that, don’t do that,” Sarah said, tearing her hands away.

The monitor picked up speed at the abrasive touch. More blood began seeping into the gauze, creating a doll-like mask out of the wrapping. Terrified, Helena puffed air in and out of her mouth, hyperventilating against the constraints of her bruised ribs. Her breath came out in short, pained wheezes.

Sarah ran to the corner of the room and waited there while her heart raced. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_. Helena cried out from the bed, raising her hands blindly into the air, seeking to touch what she could not see.

Finally, after a minute, the morphine began to drag Helena beneath the surface again. The monitor slowed from its feverish pace and Helena seeped deeper into the bed cushions.

“Helena, it’s me,” Sarah whispered from the corner, like a child racously breaking the rules from their game of hide and seek.

Stirring loudly, Sarah made her presence clear and watched as Helena roused from her stupor again, sensing the more distant company. Sarah shuffled over to Helena as clumsily as she could. If she couldn’t get Helena to recognize her, then she’d be as non-threatening as possible. Once she’d returned to Helena’s bedside, she held out her hand.

“Can you hear me?” She asked.

Helena smacked her lips once, testing the air. She turned her head to the side as though she were trying to look at Sarah, unable to understand why she couldn’t.

Inching closer, she placed her hand an inch from Helena’s parted mouth, feeling as the warmth of her breath collected against the back of her hand.

“I’m right here,” Sarah whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Helena’s nostrils flared and she settled back into the bed, calmed slightly. Sarah returned to her seat sloppily and Helena’s head deepened onto her pillow. Sarah watched as liquid dripped from the clear bag on the stand beside Helena's bed and into a small chamber before being ushered theough the network of tubes being led into Helena’s veins.

A thought entered Sarah’s mind.

“Hey, Helena,” she whispered. “I’m going to take your hand again.”

When Helena didn’t respond, she scooted closer. With her pointer finger, she touched Helena’s wrist as a warning and waited for Helena’s reaction. Her jaw worked back and forth for a second, but then she settled down again, allowing Sarah to open her palm. Using her finger, she rubbed a circle into her palm.

_I’m going to tell you something. Listen._

Helena waited, keeping perfectly still. Sarah drew a small stick figure into the pink canvas of her palm, and then another. Then she drew a line between them, connecting them.

“Your babies are safe,” she said and drew a circle around the stick figures. “Everyone’s safe now thanks to you. They can’t wait for you to get better.”

At this, Helena’s hand closed around Sarah’s fingers. She held them there for a minute, then brought them up to her lips and held them there until they both began to tremble. Clasping a hand around Helena’s, she kissed their clasped hands.

On the table beside them rest a butterfly origami with golden-gilded wings. Kira had spent a good deal of the night by Helena’s side, unfolding the crinkled page, smoothing it out against her knee, and then recreating the butterfly out of the creased paper. Now, it lay on its side with edges torn and spotted by the oil and wear of the girl’s fingers, body glittering gold.


End file.
